NRCS marks 75 years of conservation
By Janet Kubat Willette
jkubat@agrinews.com
Date Modified: 05/13/2010 8:58 AM
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ST. PAUL — In 1935, steep slopes in southeast Minnesota were clear cut, dust storms were carrying soil from the nation's midsection to Washington, D.C., and Hugh Hammond Bennett was campaigning for Congressional action to stop erosion.
Congress acted and passed the Soil Conservation Act that year. The Act created the Soil Conservation Service, the agency now known as the Natural Resources Conservation Service.
About 100 people gathered at the state NRCS headquarters April 28 to mark the 75-year milestone and to welcome Don Baloun to Minnesota. Baloun started his duties as Minnesota's sixth state conservationist on April 26.
Baloun comes to Minnesota from Wisconsin where he served as the assistant state conservationist.
"I feel really blessed (to be here)," he said. "I hear nothing but good things about Minnesota.
Baloun applied for other jobs at the same time he applied for the state conservationist job in Minnesota. It's a national process and the competition is tough, Baloun said.
"The one thing I really really really like is I like Midwest agriculture. I love working with farmers," he said. "I love rural America. When I looked at the skils that I have and where they're best suited, I knew that my skills would be better utilized … if I stay in the Midwest versus going to Florida or North Carolina or South Carolina."
It's really the luck of the draw that he ended up in Minnesota, he said.
In remarks at the open house, Baloun outlined five principles that he intends to make a key part of his vision for the NRCS in Minnesota:
• You can't do conservation from behind a desk.
• Good science matters.
• We can't treat resource concerns in isolation.
• Local leadership is essential.
• If we take care of the land, the land will take care of us.
The ideas come from Bennett, the first chief of the Soil Conservation Service.
Baloun said NRCS is putting an initiative in place to get NRCS staff out of the office and into the field.
"The initiative has two key objectives: to reduce administrative and clerical workload on field staff by 80 percent and to enable field staff to spend 75 percent of their time in the field, working with farmers and ranchers," Baloun said. Technical Service Providers will be part of this.
Sound science remains critical to the work done by NRCS, just as it was in Bennett's day, Baloun said.
It was a 20-something Bennett who along with his partner, Lewis Hurst, did the first soil survey in Minnesota. It was done in Blue Earth County in 1906, said NRCS soil scientist Doug Miller of St. Peter.
"(Bennett) and his colleagues verified that specific standards and practices could be appllied to restore soil health, improve wildlife habitat and enhance water resources," Baloun said. "All of these still demand good science today."
Further, Baloun said, while it may be easier to undertake "random acts of conservation," that doesn't serve the nation well. Instead, whole farm conservation is the direction in which the NRCS needs to move and the farm bill is helping with initiatives like the Mississippi River Basin Initiative, he said.
But in order to accomplish broad conservation initiatives, local leadership is essential, Baloun said.
Bennett advocated for local participation in conservation from the beginning of the SCS, he said. In early 1937, President Roosevelt submitted a standard soil conservation district law to the governors.
"The relationship between SWCDs and NRCS is critical in Minnesota and as your new state conservationist I look forward to being a part of this unique conservation partnership," Baloun said. "I assure you I will do everything I can to maintain and enhance our working partnership with the Soil and Water Conservation Districts."
NRCS staff will work with its partner agencies and farmers to put more conservation on the ground, Baloun said. The Obama administration is putting dollars toward conservationi efforts that help producers be environmentally sound and profitable.
"We can't be asking producers to do conservation things that don't make them money," he said.
Baloun said he thinks the NRCS can play a vital role as the cellulosic economy emerges. NRCS staff should be able to tell farmers at what point they can remove corn stover for cellulosic ethanol production without leaving the soil open for runoff and erosion.
NRCS soil scientists also play a vital role in mapping soils, providing critical information not only for conservation efforts but also for others who use the data. Two counties are in process to be completed soon and soil survey operations are underway in three counties.
Looking back over the 75 years of the agency, Baloun said conservation matters more now than it did in 1935.
"…Because we're seeing a lot of our acreage consolidated and we're having conversion of land continue," he said. "At some point you have to wonder — farmers are wonderful people and they're just doing a heckuva job feeding the world — but at some point if we only have a million acres of cropland left they've not going to be able to feed the world so I think it's getting more complex for them and it's getting more complex for us.
"As we progress it's tougher and tougher to figure out solutions," Baloun said.